Queiroz names 26 for Lebanon

PFDC – TEHRAN, Carlos Queiroz announced his 26-man squad for the camp ahead of the Asian Cup qualifier against Lebanon on February 6.

Although there are no really big surprises, some decisions might still raise a couple eyebrows.

The most anticipated call-ups were the goalkeepers after number one keeper Mehdi Rahmati decided to flee from his new competition from German second Bundesliga but the Eintracht Braunschweig man Daniel Davari had to postpone his possible Team Melli debut to March due to bad league scheduling in Germany.

But as pretty much expected, Sepahan’s Shahab Gordan, Saipa’s Rahman Ahmadi and Rubin Kazan’s Alireza Haghighi received an invitation and will fight for the number one jersey within the next week.

Only one playmaker, no Ansarifard

While the defense consists of the usual suspects, the midfield selection is at least slightly astonishing. Of the just five players who would compete for the three spots in midfield, should Queiroz stick to his 4-3-3 formation, four are defensive minded with only Mojtaba Jabbari being a classic central offensive midfielder.

Jabbari, one of the best players for Iran in could give his long anticipated comeback after missing the second half of 2012 due ti injury.

Ali Karimi and Omid Nazari are missing injured while Reza Haghighi also is not fully healthy and was left out too. The recently regular invitees Mohammad Nouri and Ghasem Dehnavi didn’t make the list, just like Milad Nouri.

On the other hand no less than ten player will struggle for three slots in the attacking line, although a small formation change to a 4-2-3-1 or 4-2-2-2 doesn’t seem unlikely with the selected set of players.

Karim Ansarifard and Mohammad Ghazi are not among those as they complete the prominent absentee list of Persepolis players.

However, their in-form teammate Gholamreza Rezaei made the list after being left out injured for more than a year whereas Esteghlal targetman Farzad Hatami could celebrate his national team debut.

Below come the 26 players.

Goalkeepers
Alireza Haghighi – Rubin Kazan, RUS
Shahab Gordan – Sepahan
Rahman Ahmadi – Saipa

Defenders
Khosro Heydari – Esteghlal
Hossein Mahini – Persepolis
Hadi Aghily – Qatar SC, QAT
Jalal Hosseini – Persepolis
Pejman Montazeri – Esteghlal
Mohammad Nosrati – Tractor Sazi
Mehrdad Pouladi – Persepolis
Ehsan Hajsafi – Sepahan

Midfielders
Javad Nekounam – Esteghlal
Andranik Teymouriam – Al Kharitiyath, QAT
Pejman Nouri – Malavan
Omid Ebrahimi – Sepahan
Mojtaba Jabbari – Esteghlal

Strikers
Ashkan Dejagah – Fulham FC, ENG
Masoud Shojaei – Osasuna, ESP
Mohammad-Reza Khalatbari – Sepahan
Gholamreza Rezaei – Persepolis
Arash Afshin – Foolad
Yaghoub Karimi – Naft Tehran
Reza Ghoochannejhad – Standard Liege, BEL
Jalal Rafkhaei – Malavan
Mehrdad Oladi – Malavan
Farzad Hatami – Esteghlal